| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: us because of our sin, and thereby makes us humble. This should
be done as briefly as possible, that then the entire congregation
may confess their own sin and pray for every one with earnestness
and faith.
Oh, if God granted that any congregation at all heard mass and
prayed in this way, so that a common earnest heart-cry of the
entire people would rise up to God, what immeasurable virtue and
help would result from such a prayer! What more terrible thing
could happen to all the evil spirits? What greater work could be
done on earth, whereby so many pious souls would be preserved,
so many sinners converted?
|
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: desert fell; the sound of its fall resounded far and wide, like a sigh
in the solitude; the soldier shuddered as though he had heard some
voice predicting woe.
But like an heir who does not long bewail a deceased relative, he tore
off from this beautiful tree the tall broad green leaves which are its
poetic adornment, and used them to mend the mat on which he was to
sleep.
Fatigued by the heat and his work, he fell asleep under the red
curtains of his wet cave.
In the middle of the night his sleep was troubled by an extraordinary
noise; he sat up, and the deep silence around allowed him to
|
